Spring in February?

Hello! It's the middle of February here in England the weather we've been having has been more like mid April back home! The flowers have all started blooming and trees are getting leaf buds. I got pretty excited about all this lovely change, so I went outside to take some photos of it all. The one above doesn't look very springlike, but I loved how the little pigeon feather was stuck in the dead branches, and I couldn't help myself. I think it turned out rather beautifully.


This next photo is of moss, which as it turns out I seem to have an obsession for. It's simply every where you turn in England, probably because it's so humid all of the time. I think it's just absolutely stunning, especially in photographs. By now I've probably got at least forty different pictures of moss in different towns.

The next two pictures I took just outside of the door to my apartment. I love the colors of all the little blooms that are around and the lushness of all the green coming out from the ground. One of my friends was telling me that the best time is when the snowdrops and bluebells start blooming and I couldn't help but think that the names of those flowers sound like they should be made up for a poem or something.



Finally, this is a photo of the orchid that I got for valentine's day from my fiance. I just thought the photo turned out incredibly and I wanted to share! :)


In other news, I am going to see "Midsummer Night's Dream" by Shakespeare tonight with one of my friends from my program. I'll see if I can take some pictures during the performance, but I might not be allowed. I'll give a full report afterward! :)

Also, I've been set to act in the play that my friend wrote, only I won't be playing the role of the pick pocketer anymore, I'll be the 'villain' character instead. I'm excited and I've been enjoying the rehearsals with the cast so far!

Finally, I've finished over half of my novel so far, and I'm hoping to have the first draft finished in full by the end of the week. I gave the first 8 chapters to a professor for one of my classes. She's known for being a much tougher much pickier instructor, and she usually gives pretty harsh criticism. So, needless to say, I'm a bit nervous that she'll tear it apart, or hate it all together. But even as harsh as it may be, I know that it will make it so much better in the end, so I'm looking forward to what she has to say! (Just as long as she doesn't suggest I don't continue writing the other half!)

Until next time,
Sarah

My theatrical Debut!

Hi there!

I have some exciting news! :) One of my friends from my creative writing course has authored a short play that is going to be performed at the University, and she asked if I would fill in for one of her actors that couldn't come to some of the rehearsals. So I have been, and as it turns out this other person is going to be missing so much rehearsal that she's not going to be in the play anymore. And I got asked to take her part! :) I'm really excited and I'm waiting to hear back on the dates of the performances (I believe there are three) to make sure I don't have any unavoidable conflicts with orchestra etc.

The play is about a young woman who is a writer for a magazine and she wants her own column, but another employee is constantly overshadowing her. On the side she writes for herself and has invented three characters that she works with: An old west cowboy (which, I must say, watching a British person do the southern accent is pretty amusing, but he's doing a really good job with it!), a pick pocket (that's me!) and another character that she's currently trying to shape over the course of the play. So, since the three characters are all in her head, only she can see us and talk to us. It's funny and I'm really excited to make it awesome with the rest of the cast! :) I think that for my character's entrance, she's going to have me walk in down the center isle of the theater and take things from people that we've planted in the audience. You know, since my character is a pick pocket. :)

I'm pretty sure I'll be able to coerce one of my other friends to come and video tape and maybe if it's not really embarrassing, I'll post it. :)

In other news, I'm hoping to be half way through my novel today (through 8 chapters)! It is only a rough draft, but I'm really starting to look forward to the editing stage. Writing this much is tiring!

Until next time,
Sarah

Goings on

Hello!

It's a rainy day in England, and I've been keeping myself really busy! This past week I got to go to all my courses, all my rehearsals (both of which, I'm really excited about the music selection!), and I've also gotten into the French class I mentioned last time. By the time I had gotten signed up and everything, I had missed the first class, so the second class I went to was a bit overwhelming. And as different as French is than Spanish, every time the professor asked us what the French word was for an English one, my mind automatically pulled up the Spanish translation. But I'm sure that after a few weeks I'll get into the swing of French. :) I'm excited to get good enough to have a conversation with someone in France (France is only a two hour ferry boat away from where I live, so my fingers are crossed).

Also this week, I went on a 5 mile walk with my friend, Helga, from Norway. We stumbled across this old cemetery that neither of us knew was there! I'm not sure why, but the grass throughout the gravestones was all bumpy and torn up, which made it a little bit spooky! :) See the picture below, although it's hard to tell the extent of the torn up grass in the picture. We also found this grave marker that was a sculpture of an angel. It was massive and stood out amongst all the other more traditional stones in a very haunting kind of way. When I got closer I noticed that someone (or at least I hope it was someone and not something!) had painted its eyes red, which was rather scary looking, and also kind of sad.


Finally, I snapped this photo of an ivy covered headstone, and I just really like how the photo turned out, so I thought that I'd post it for you! :)


In my writing news, for one of my courses (Writing for Children and Young Adults) we were given the task of writing a picture book for children. The professor said that we could put in sketches for the pictures, and I got really excited about it! I'm thinking about writing a story about "Stanley the Unshaven Sheep" which will be about a little sheep who doesn't want to be sheared. Below is a rough illustration that I've done on him so far. It may very well change, but this is what I've got so far:

I also have worked on a few other characters, but I don't have any particular story in mind. The first is "Lucy and the Purple Violin" and then below her is just a little dragon/monster sort of thing that just sort of happened while I was sketching. We'll see if they have any potential to get worked into a book.

Finally, I've been working really hard on my novel, and I'm hoping to have a full rough first draft finished by the end of the month. I'm hoping to enter it into a "Page Turner" competition for unpublished first novels. The winner gets 1,000 pounds, an agent, and I believe the novel gets published or at least represented by the agent. It would be really exciting! :) I'm averaging 3,000 words per day, so hopefully I can keep that up and get it finished off!

Until next time,
Sarah

A new drawing and new classes

Hello, there!

I've started my new classes this week, and I am really excited about all of them! My classes include: Art and Craft of Fiction II (focus on the short story), Writing for Children and Young Adults, and Creative Workshop. I am also hoping to be able to get into an introduction to French Language class! I've only had one class of each so far, so it might be too early to say, but I think I'm going to get a lot out of all of these courses and also really enjoy the reading lists!

In my Creative Workshop this week, we got a new professor (it's a year long course and the two classes switch professors after the first term) and I think I really like her. She's known for being more difficult and more brutally honest in critiques than my previous professor, but I think it's about time for some tough love. She's Scottish, is an artist, and she has a very non conventional teaching style--which is fantastic on all accounts! I kind of wish I could be friends with her, because we have so much in common, but alas! In class this week, I had to read something I had written aloud in class, and my professor had me read it again, because she "couldn't understand my American accent"!! That is the very first time this has happened! I was really surprised because some of my other European friends had said that I had a really easy to understand accent, but I guess maybe I read differently than I speak.

Tonight I took a couple of hours to do a drawing, and I think it turned out pretty well. So, I thought I'd share: